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November 20, 2009, a Friday
City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico, USA
— Photographed wildlife
Had my normal breakfast and did some computer work. I went up on the roof of the RV and tilted the solar-electric panels towards the passenger side of the RV to maximize the amount of solar power we could collect today. I also cleaned off the solar-electric panels to remove a thin layer of dust. I left at 9:35 in the Jeep by myself.

I had set up to photograph from the Jeep, and I went to the Pegasus campground loop to try to photograph some of the birds we had seen there during our walk yesterday. The birds weren't cooperative, but a rock squirrel (left) was. :) I hadn't photographed that species before, so it was quite exciting to find that cooperative subject!

I returned to the RV around 11:30 and showered almost right away. J had turned on the hot water heater when she returned from her walk while I was gone, and the water was nice and warm. :) I started to download the images I took this morning then made lunch.

Had lunch at 12:00 of Genoa Salami and Swiss on rye with Great Value (WalMart brand) All Natural Course Ground Mustard. That was the first time I've had that kind of mustard, and it was an emergency replacement for my regular Grey Poupon Country Dijon mustard. I was about to run out of mustard the last time we went grocery shopping, and WalMart didn't have the Grey Poupon Country Dijon mustard. J noticed that the Great Value All Natural Course Ground Mustard looked similar to it, so I decided to give it a try instead of going with the regular Grey Poupon mustard that they did have. I must say, that in a sandwich, the Great Value is a perfectly good substitute, and at about half the price, it'll probably become my mustard of choice. After having a banana and an apple, I did a quick edit of the images I took this morning. Then I did some computer work. We left at 4:00 in the Jeep.


We had set up to photograph from the Jeep, and we went in search of wildlife to photograph. We spent most of our time parked near the camp host who had some bird feeders set up. We photographed house finches and chipping and white-crowned sparrows as they stopped in a tree on their way to and from the feeders. Other birds were in the area, including a cactus wren that walked around on the hood of the Jeep for a while!


We left the birds to go look for other targets of opportunity and came across a desert cottontail hiding in the bushes (left). Fortunately, we could get the Jeep in position so that we could take turns photographing it through a small gap in the bushes.

We returned to the RV around 5:10. I downloaded the images I took this afternoon and did a quick edit in iView. Then I did a first-round downselect in Capture One (C1).

We had dinner at 6:10 of J's (frozen) tortilla soup and a salad. We talked about travel plans for the next month or so.

After doing the dishes, I selected and processed three images for the blog while having some Aalborg Jubilæums Akvavit. Then I started to work up the blog entry.